Planning a REAL garden

I've finally decided that I have 2 actual, permanent homes. We don't plan on moving for years (if ever) and neither will my mother. I spend half my time at my mom's anyway, so I consider it my second home. And someday I expect we will have to move back there to help take care of her as she gets older. Soooo.... It's time to settle in to some real serious gardening.

The goal here is to use mostly organic techniques and create a garden that will suit our needs and requires as little care as possible. We need a minimal care, high pleasure garden to relax and play in. Kids of all ages, from 6 months (my brother's littlest child) to 46 years old like to spend time in the garden, though we can never enlist much help from any of them. We have lazy, non-gardeners living with us... I think they're allergic to physical labor.

Mom's garden will have to serve the following purposes:

• Play area large enough to set up a small swimming pool for the kids.
• Grilling and chillin'
• Providing an escape from the heat of the day during summer months.
• Fshpond for guppies.
• flowers for leimaking

My garden's purpose:

• Play area again.
• experimental garden (for trying out plants I like before committing... kinda like relationships)
• Growing veggies/fruits
• Herb Garden
• Cutting flowers (just cuz I like em)
• child's garden to grow stuff in
• Grillin' and chillin' again
  

Gosh...I sound so organized. Don't let this post fool you.

Some stats:

• Zone 11 (yes there really is such a thing!)
  
• Most areas are hot, sunny and dry. A few pockets of dry shade.
  
• Red Dirt hard soil. Needs amendments to grow the stuff we like.
  
• Womanpower: 2 weekend gardeners. No real muscle power, just smarts and persistence. Possibly able to enlist a slave or two with a bit of bribery. (Child labor- the laws don't apply to family members.)
  
• Not much money to spend on a garden. Let's budget $10.00/month (or $120.00/year) per garden.
  

Resources we can tap:

• Occasional brute strength (if we feed The Man).
• A big heap of mulch, located at a nearby Community College. (Haul your own, but it's free.)
• A pickup truckload of compost. We have to wait till uncle is available, but the wait is worth it!
• The library of course... for ideas, inspiration and knowledge.
• An empty, undeveloped space in the back for extra filler (soil, just as bad as ours). Will have to explore to see if there are usable rocks there.
• Mom's gravel pile.
• Plants from friends and family... (probably have to make our own cuttings.)
• Bunny poo from the family pet.

Things we can NOT do to the garden (I have to remember this because my big ideas are too costly and we haven't enough strong slaves to help with the heavy work):

• Tear up the sidewalk to replace it with a flowing path around the house.
• Replace the old shed.
• Building rock wall terraces

I think I will have to start a gardening blog... so future posts will be on my gardening blog.